With regard to the vocals--Pasi doesn't have the gutsiest, most powerful voice imaginable, but he has a lot of control and very individual phrasing, and he puts a lot of passion into each of his words. It ends up communicating more than the relatively monotone growls on previous albums--not that I didn't love those too; in fact, when "Greed" comes up on this album I'm totally psyched for something gutteral. But this is like having a whole new dimension.

How does it compare with "Tales from the Thousand Lakes"? Apples and oranges. But you can love them both. This is a masterpiece, recommended 100%.


astonishingly original   March 14, 2003
RxxktheVote (maryland)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Relapse records: the home of ridiculous, boundary pushing grindcore and sonic extremity. Amorphis hardly qualify as extreme, but boundaries they do push... Tuonela is a logical progression for Finland's finest metal export. In fact, it barely resembles metal at all, a transition furthered with Am Universum. Instead, Amorphis weave abstract keyboard and organ playing with pyschedelic guitars and the occasional power chord. Tuonela is lush, organic and beautiful... imagine cruising through the desert at night, tripping on Peyote. This is the soundtrack.


A new dimension in doom metal is shown here...   January 5, 2000
Martijn Flamman and Bas (Middelburg, the Netherlands)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

The Finnish delight in doom metal, Amorphis, has made one of the best cd's in the pre-apocalyptic year of '99. After the magnificant "Tales from the thousand "lakes" and "Elegy" they now offer us 'Tuonela": simply a new dimension into their already astonishing music. Of course they have followed their way which they began to walk on with "Elegy". The death grunts are almost gone and the music maybe isn't as doomy as on "The tales...". But that's only after two or three listenings. When you really start to get into thsi music, you can hear that the music hasn't been so melancholy and deep ever in their career.They have written some of their best songs of their lifes, and they have put in some new ingredients which make the songs only better. After "Elegy" they began to experiment with psychedelical- and '70's-influences. These influences are now put into their music in a very subtile way, just as the eternal Finnish folk-influences, which are again present. All these influences you can hear only after at least three listenings, so you should really try to listen to this music very good. What more can I say now? Maybe that it just isn't true that (what probably many so-called fans and music-journalists say) Amorphis is now definitively not a metal band any more. Indead, it's just what the title of this cd tells us (Tuonela is an (old)-Finnish word which means "underworld"): they have never been so deep into the underworld as ever! This was all i could say about this magnificent piec of work. I only want to say now: everyone who loves doom- or gothicmetal should listen to IN THE WOODS, a superb band who is so experimental and weird that nowbody knows them and that you even can't buy their super-cd's "Omnio" and "Strange in stereo" at Amazon (shame on you, Amazon! ). And furthermore everyone who likes Amorphis should try the newest of Tiamat and My Dying Bride!


Perhaps their best   August 31, 2004
Tom Z (USA)
5 out of 6 found this review helpful

Amorphis's Tuonala, a very controversial album indeed. Maybe writing a review for this is pointless since everyone seems to have a differing opinion, but I'll give it a shot though. This is where they changed from Death metal to more melodic metal. All songs feature clean vox and only one song has death vox on it. This is just fine with me, Pasi has improved a lot at singing since Tales From the Thousand Lakes and while the death vox were awesome too they were more restrictive than helpful to Amorphis's sound. As for the music it's almost the same as Elegy. Just a bit more mellow and more atmospheric. The best comparision I could think of would be Draconian Times era Paradise Lost, only a bit more wispy sounding. They also use a lot more intruments that aren't typical for metal on this album, flute, saxophone, sitar. I don't think these were neccassary but they don't hurt the album in any major way either. In my eyes Tuonela ranks up there with the best from Katatonia's later stuff, Anathema, Paradise Lost and all the other bands that make similar music. This is one of my favorite Amorphis albums and may even be their best. Like I said before though, everyone seems to have their own opinion about it so it would probably be benifical to listen to it before purchasing it.